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Botchok
Orion VIII, or Botchok, and also called Orion, was the eighth planet of the Orion-system, capital of the Botchok Planetary Congress. It was the ancient homeworld of the Orion race. It was a class-M planet and had two moons, one of which was major. It also had the distinction of being the only known habitable ringed planet. The planet was conquered in 2153 during the Borderland Blitz, the Klingon Empire annexation of the Botchok Planetary Congress, becoming a protectorate world when the Orion government surrendered. Culture Botchok was home to 5.6-billion people, the most populous of Orion worlds. They lived in the many comfortable and well-managed cities and semi-dispersed agricultural communities that were scattered around the world. A primitive Orion cave-drawing on Botchok depicted a spaceship landing on the plains, with bulky suited aliens emerging to capture and carry away the stick-figure natives. As the ancient homeworld of the Orion people, the cultural and spiritual center of their civilization, and rife with artistic types, Botchok was thick with shrines and temples, monuments and memorial parks, statues, museums, and relics and ruins of its long history, with countless festivals, celebrations and remembrances. These were all exploited for the tourism industry. However, Orion Colonials saw the Homeworlders of Botchok as effete, snobbish, timid and lazy. They were thought of as homebodies, with an inexplicable fear and disgust of those who traveled and explored. Their reverence of old names and customs was dismissed when the customs didn't make sense. They were said to be unproductive, decadent and ungrateful for the efforts of the Colonies. In turn, the homeworlders thought of the colonials as uncivilized, lacking in history, tradition and class, crowded with people and forgetting their origins as they picked up alien habits. Despite all this, they were still bound together by trade and sentiment. Inspiring much of Orion Colony design, Botchoki architecture included fluted and spiraled towers with minarets, knurled blocks of apartments with balconies, all built of colored stone and adorned with cloth hangings. There were bazaars, cantinas, markets and clubs. The roughest taverns on Botchok could have ears nailed to the wall, even Klingon ears. The spaceport had an alien quarter, with a low-powered 'tourist field' artificial gravity. Souvenir stores here sold black capes with hoods. Economics With nearly all of its natural resources and raw materials used up, Botchok depended on imports from other worlds, even lumber and oil, while it salvaged and recycled all it could, to support itself and its own meager supplies. It produced no goods; its primary exports were information, expertise, entertainment and cultural artefacts. A sizable proportion of the population consisted of authors, artists, entertainers and specialists. Their earnings made up a large part of the planet's total income, and a liberal tax system encouraged more to come to Botchok from other worlds. Local governments even offered package deals to prospective valuable residents. Tourism was also a significant industry, with three billion visitors arriving on Botchok each year to see the historical and cultural sights or attend business meetings and conventions. To cater to them, there were hotels, convention centers, casinos, guided tours, museums and countless festivals, celebrations and remembrances. Orinco Shipbuilders, a Rigellian company, kept their shipyards on Rigel VIII, at which they manufactured the Dwarfstar class freighter. Environment Botchok had a 28-hour day, with 40.8% land mass and 59.2% water. A class M world with a terrestrial atmosphere, the climate was warm and dry, though with an average temperature of 19.2° Celsius, and it was said to be rather pleasant. As Rigel was a bright blue-white star, the sun here was exceptionally bright. Botchok had a high gravity of around 1.8–2.0 g, while the spaceport's alien quarter has a lower artificial gravity. As the site of many proxy wars fought with Orion slave soldiers, and once enduring the Atom War and an ensuing holocaust called the Long Winter, the ecology and atmosphere of Botchok suffered greatly. To correct the damage, the Orions attempted to repair it in the historic First Stage project, though with inferior terraforming technology, little care and a lot of zeal. Ever since, they have were forced to make frequent corrections to many oversights and natural imbalances. As a result, Botchok's climate and most of its ecology was artificially maintained at an incredible cost, but also tuned for greatest comfort, with little bad weather. It was nearly free of dangerous animals and plants, and cured of serious diseases, but maybe only five percent of all life-forms on the planet were native to it, including the microbes and the Orions (and this was doubtful given speculation about their prehistory). All the rest had either been imported from other worlds, or altered in some way. Nearly all of its natural resources had also been depleted, necessitating imports from off-world—if these were to be cut off, the biosphere management system would fail in a few days, and Botchok would turn into a half-frozen wasteland within a year. It had a total surface area of 617,512,690 square kilometers and, with 41% land mass, a total land area of 253,180,200 square kilometers. About 14% of Botchok's makeup was normal metals, 2% was radioactive elements, 1% was gemstones, 2% was industrial crystals, and 5% was special minerals. Government The alien overlords of the Orion people originally created the nations of Botchok for their convenience, with different factions controlling different regions and using them as pawns against each other in proxy warfare. They were bound together by Nallin the Unconquerable during the battle for Orion freedom. These ancient nation-states survived into the late 23rd century since nothing replaced them, with their original power and independence intact—with relatively little of either compared to the powerful Orion families and corporations. Of these nation-states, the so-called "Big Four" were Kulian, Mazak, Tipot and Yuin, whose delegates controlled the Botchok Planetary Congress (BPC) and the Orion Colonies Intelligence. There were few disputes between the nations and their governments, and history blurred the distinctions between them and their forms of government. Usually they just disagreed on matters regarding the BPC itself and its role in the Orion Colonies. Category:Planets Category:Geography Category:Orion